Leyeco II asked to refund customers of over-recovered PPD fees

TACLOBAN CITY—The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has asked Leyte II Electric Cooperative (Leyeco II) to refund its customers after it over-recovered Prompt Payment Discount (PPD) fees.

In an ERC order dated June 25, 2012 and penned by Commissioner Maria Teresa A.R. Castañeda, it ordered Leyeco II to return some P8.16 million to consumers who were overcharged by the electric cooperative in its implementation of the reinstated PPD for a period of two years.

Starting from the next billing cycle, it is expected that residential consumers will be reduced by P0.0466 per kilowatt hour (kWh); commercial, P7.5361; industrial, P7.1632; public building, P7.1665; and street lights, P4.6363.

It could be recalled that in 2005, ERC issued an order directing Leyeco II to collect the under-recoveries it increased from the time Automatic Generation Rate Adjustment (AGRA) mechanism became effective by using the reinstated PPD in supply charges for a period of 12 months or until such time that the under-recoveries shall have been fully recovered.

But according to ERC, upon verification of the month submission made by Leyeco II, it was found out that it implemented the reinstated PPD in supply charges for 31 months particularly from January 2001 to July 2008 instead of 12 months that resulted to an over-recovery of P8,161.120.

On February 2011, ERC directed Leyeco II to refund said amount but the latter filed a motion for reconsideration. ERC however denied said motion for being filed out of time.

As of this writing, Leyeco II officials could not immediately give comments on the recent ERC order.

Meanwhile, Rodolfo F. Celestial, regional coordinator of National Association of Electricity Consumers for Reforms (NASECORE) said their advocacy “is slowly but surely bearing fruit.”
“We hope Leyeco II would heed to the order of ERC,” Celestial said. (REYAN L. ARINTO)

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Posted by lsde on Jul 10 2012. Filed under News1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.